by Sable Sylvan
“Goldie...you haven’t changed a bit,” said Brian with a sly grin, taking Goldilocks by the hand. “Let’s blow this popsicle stand.”
As soon as Goldilocks felt Brian’s hand, an electric shock practically ran through her body. His callused hand felt familiar, the only thing that had felt like home since she’d come back to Port Jameson, and as they made their way through the crowd, she knew people were staring, but she didn’t care. They’d always stared, called her names like ‘slut’ and ‘tease’ for having three male best friends who she wasn’t dating, but being with Brian just felt so right...even if she didn’t want to admit it.
Chapter Two
Brian wrapped one of his strong arms around Goldilocks’ waist, keeping his broad hand on the side of her curvy hips as they walked across the lot to his pickup truck. Red, with a chipped paint job, it was the same car he’d had since their second year of high school, but it seemed smaller as Brian had become much taller.
Brian helped Goldilocks up into the passenger seat and then got in the driver seat. “Remember this old thing?” asked Brian.
“Yeah...honestly, I’m surprised you haven’t upgraded by now,” said Goldilocks. The black leather seats were soft, familiar, and still stank of man musk the way they had in high school, minus the copious amounts of body spray that the boys had used as deodorant. The car was chilly, as usual, and Goldilocks realized that she’d left her jacket back in her car. “Remember how we’d all have to trade off, and sometimes sit in the back, because there weren’t enough seats for all of us?”
“Of course I do,” said Brian with a laugh as he started up the car. He didn’t turn on the heat but being so close to Goldilocks warmed her right up. “The summers before and after junior year were really something else, weren’t they?”
“Yeah,” said Goldilocks, looking out the window of the car. It was weird being back in Port Jameson, back in the pickup truck she’d spent so much of the last two years of her high school life in, back with one of the men she’d missed so much. “Before you and Glen and Cliff...”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” said Brian softly. “Not tonight, Goldie. It’s been so long since I’ve seen you.”
“I take it you haven’t seen any of them since...” started Goldilocks.
“I don’t. Want. To talk about it,” repeated Brian softly through clenched teeth. “But...no, Glen and I see each other around town, and we’re civil now, we have to be, this town’s too small to have enemies. Cliff...I don’t know what happened to him, but from what I heard, he’s back in Alaska. But things have never been the same between any of us since senior year.”
“Don’t you ever miss them?” asked Goldilocks.
“Nowhere close to as much as I missed you. The human side of me, of course, but the bear in me, the bear...is territorial, to put it lightly,” said Brian. “To put it bluntly, the bear inside is possessive, protective, and obsessive. I’ve had to hold back, every day, to stop myself from going to Seattle and hunting you down...but I didn’t. I know you never liked living in Port Jameson, but this is the best that a bear shifter can get: I can’t live in the woods like I’d want, that’s just not the kind of world we live in, and so a small, rural town like Port Jameson is perfect for me...but even Port Jameson feels crowded to me. Shifters aren’t meant to live together like this, all stuffed together”
“You...you had to hold back?” asked Goldilocks. “How?”
Brian laughed. “By trying to forget that I ever loved you, Goldie, and trying to forget that you ever broke my heart the day you walked away. I’ve done nothing but work since the day that I finally got out of bed and realized that there was more to life than wishing that the one woman I couldn’t have would finally wake up and realize that I was the man for her,” explained Brian. “So as soon as I finally woke up from my hibernation, I got a job at the lumber mill...and I worked as a jack of all trades. I was a lumberjack for a while, and now I do some light construction and handyman work as well. The pay’s okay, and I get to work with my own, with other shifters.”
“But I thought living with other shifters was, what, crowded?” asked Goldie.
“It is,” says Brian. “But this one human left a pretty nasty taste in my mouth, and on my lips, so I try to keep my distance from them.”
“Oh,” said Goldie, her stomach dropping.
“Let’s just get this done so you can go back to Seattle, you can go back to your life,” said Brian. “After all, there’s no such thing as mates, right? So what do you have to lose?”
You, thought Goldie...but she didn’t say anything, and instead, just sat in silence as Brian drove the truck to the back of the high school, past the old football field.
Brian parked his car out by the construction site of the new football stadium. Although the Port Jameson football team wasn’t very good, even with its roster of shifters, the town sure loved its football, but the construction site was empty and dark at night.
“Do you trust me?” asked Brian, leaving the car idling as he took his hands off the wheels.
“What?” asked Goldie.
“Do. You. Trust. Me?” asked Brian, enunciating each word. “Because I can take us somewhere nobody will find us.”
Those words, from anyone else, would have caused a shiver to run down her spine, but not from Brian. “I trust you, Brian,” said Goldie.
“Then hold on,” said Brian, backing up his truck. “And buckle up.”
Goldie hurriedly buckled up her seat belt as Brian drove to one of the fences that divided the school parking lot from the woods: the fence’s gate had been left open, and a sign reading “DO NOT ENTER” was on the open gate.
“Brian, we’re going to get in trouble,” hissed Goldie. “Turn around!”
“You said you trusted me,” teased Brian. “And hey, you were always game for at least a little trouble, weren’t you? One last hurrah, for old time’s sake?”
“Fine,” said Goldie as the truck rolled over the rough path through the forest. The path had been formed by other vehicles and the further they went into the forest, the less forestry equipment and tree stumps she saw, and the rougher the road became. “But you better know where we going.”
“These are my woods, human,” said Brian. “But I don’t think any bear’s ever gotten lost in a forest before.”
Goldie looked out the window: everything was pitch black to her, outside of the range of the truck’s headlights. She had to admit that although the truck was growing long in the tooth, it was still the same reliable truck that had gotten them out of many a jam, from the time they’d used it to get Cliff’s parents sedan out of a mud pit before his parents had realized he’d taken it for a joyride to the times that they’d just used it to all get to the less crowded swimming hole a few miles outside town. The truck felt empty, with just the two of them in the front seat, without Glen, without Cliff, but Goldie didn’t mention it.
Brian rolled the car into a clearing and turned off the headlights. “We’re here,” said Brian. He hopped out of the car and opened the door for Goldilocks. “We doing this or what, sunshine?” he asked.
Sunshine. Goldie hadn’t heard Brian call her that since the last day she’d seen him, and whenever she was called sunshine by a hobo, a barista, or by a drunken guy at a bar, she always immediately thought of Brian. “Yeah,” she said quietly. “We are.” She got out of the truck, Brian’s hand in hers, as he led her to the flat truck bed.
Brian unrolled a camping pad and pillow. “You’re lucky I keep this stuff in my truck,” said Brian as he laid out the foam over the top of his truck bed. He unzipped a sleeping bag, extra large, and used that as a makeshift blanket, for comfort rather than heat. The night was chilly and Goldilocks held her arms close to her body for warmth.
“Why don’t you have a jacket?” asked Brian. “There’s no way you forgot how cold Port Jameson gets at night.”
“I left my parka in my car,” admitted Goldilocks. “I wasn’t exactly prepared for.
..this. Is anyone going to catch us?”
“We’re far enough from the high school that nobody’s going to be able to see us,” said Brian. “It’s basically pitch black...and unless you want me to the turn on a lantern, it’s going to stay that way. It’s just you and me out here: everyone’s inside...so you can moan as loud as you want.”
“Whatever,” said Goldie, rolling her eyes. “I doubt I’m going to be able to feel anything anyway: it’s so cold, I’m going to lose feeling in my fingers.”
“Well, I’m sure I can warm you up,” said Brian, wrapping his arms around Goldilocks’ ample waist, feeling his forearms gently press into the softness of her back. “Let me help you into the back.”
Goldilocks expected Brian to help her up by holding her hand as she got into the bed of the truck, one leg at a time. What she didn’t expect was for him to pick her up like a sack of potatoes (a sexy sack of sexy potatoes) and sit with her in the back of the car with her butt spread across his lap.
“You didn’t have to do that...showoff,” teased Goldie.
“Do what, be efficient?” said Brian. “A lot’s changed since you left town, Goldie...and I’m the kind of man who gets what he wants now.”
“How do you know about this place anyway?”
“Sometimes, I need to get away...clear my thoughts,” said Brian. “And so I come up here. The meadow’s not much, but it’s somewhere to go to be by myself.”
“And what’s been on your mind?” asked Goldie. “It seems like you’ve got it all set up here...you’ve got a job, you’re around your kind, you’ve got your truck.” Goldie knocked on the sides of the truck bed.
“There’s more to life than just work,” said Brian. “And more to life than just being a shifter.”
“Like what?” asked Goldie. “You take up some new hobbies since I’ve been gone?”
“Unless pining over the one girl I ever wanted counts as a hobby, then no,” said Brian sarcastically. “But I like to go out here and try to get over that bad habit.”
“Why here?” asked Goldie.
Brian lifted Goldie off his lap and put her down onto the camping pad as he hopped off the truck and reached into his car, turning off the headlights. In those few seconds in which Goldie was out of Brian’s arms, she felt colder, on the outside but also on the inside. There was something about Brian that made her feel warm inside.
Brian hopped back into the truck bed and put Goldie back into his lap without asking her, but this time, Goldie didn’t argue. “Look up,” said Brian. “Tell me you see stars like that in Seattle, Goldie. Tell me.”
Goldie took her eyes off the chiseled black-haired man and looked up at the inky sky, the white stars sprinkled across the darkness like paint flicked off of a painter’s brush. This wasn’t a new sight to Goldie: she’d seen it before, many times, when she lived in Port Jameson...but seeing it with new eyes, she was taken aback at how she’d taken the natural beauty of Port Jameson for granted when she’d lived there.
“I haven’t seen anything like this in a long time, Brian,” said Goldilocks softly. “You know, the first time I landed in Seattle...I thought that the lights of the city looked like fallen stars. I never thought that the stars would look like city lights in the sky, like a city on some far off mountain.”
Brian gently pulled Goldie closer and held her as she leaned her head back onto his firm chest. Brian’s broad but firm chest was like the back of an armchair, propping Goldie up so she could watch the grandeur of the Milky Way, broken up only by the tree line and interrupted only by the blinking white, red, and yellow lights of airplanes making their way across the Oregon sky.
Brian inhaled and his nose was filled with the most intoxicating scent he’d ever smelled, a familiar scent, the scent of the woman he loved. Humans could sometimes smell others, but when they did, it was usually faint, outside of odors caused by poor hygiene or health conditions. To bear shifters, even the faintest trace of scent held as many olfactory layers as the finest perfumes, and Goldie smelled of honey, oatmeal, and maple syrup all mixed together. While he could feel his own heart beat speeding up, the heart beat of the woman in his lap remained strong but steady and calm.
As Goldie snuggled backwards into Brian’s arms, her hair was pushed up his chest, closer to Brian’s nose, and the scent of the woman combined with the way her lush curves pillowed his arms as he held her and stargazed caused blood to rush downwards, and he couldn’t stop himself from hardening.
Goldie scooted back one final time in Brian’s lap, the third position she’d tried that weekend, her butt firmly against his groin, and the third time was the charm: she could look all around the dark meadow, over the tree line, and watch the stars without shivering, kept warm by Brian, from the inside out...but then she felt something other than just warm arms surrounding her body and firm legs propping her up.
Goldie was glad that the night was dark as she felt her face burn crimson. She turned, and looked up to Brian. “Brian...are you, uhm...aroused?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” asked Brian, grinding Goldie on his cock from behind, rubbing the seam of her pants closer to her pussy, the crux of the seam rubbing against her nub, sending a wave of pleasure with each rock forward and backward.
“But I’m just sitting in your lap,” said Goldie, confused.
“You have a lot to learn about men if you don’t know that just the feeling of a sexy woman’s body can drive a man wild,” said Brian. “And you better be sure you want to drive this bear wild.”
A wave of embarrassment flowed through Goldie. “Brian...if me sitting in your lap makes you hard...what about all those times I sat on your lap in high school?” asked Goldie.
“I got a boner, each and every time,” said Brian with a laugh. “I flipped it up into my waistband though, and I’d find an excuse to get up so you wouldn’t feel my dick poking your butt.”
“Oh my God, I’m so embarrassed,” said Goldie, scooting off of Brian’s lap. “I’m so sorry.”
Brian pulled Goldie back in one fell swoop. “Hey, don’t be embarrassed. It’s kind cute how oblivious you can be...you’re so smart with books, but dumb with boys.”
Goldie didn’t resist Brian pulling her back into his lap, but the feeling of his hands gripping her ample love handles turned her on unexpectedly. “Maybe I’m just not good with bear shifters,” retorted Goldie.
“Well, we already know I’m shit with human girls,” said Brian with a laugh. “Scratch that: girls, period. Guess that makes us even...kinda.”
“Except for the fact you’re a hunk, and I’m still...you know,” said Goldie.
“Still what?” asked Brian, genuinely confused.
“You know what, don’t make me say it,” said Goldie. With a huff and a turn away from Brian’s chest, she finally said, “I know I’m big, okay?”
“Goldie, if I wanted a twig...trust me, I would’ve gone after one,” said Brian. “But I don’t know a single bear shifter that doesn’t like his honey without buns, if you know what I mean. To be crude, bigger is better. Sexier. More feminine, more woman, and that’s just what a shifter needs: a woman who’s got what it takes to bear our loads. A woman who can take a dick and birth a full litter of cubs.”
“So...you’re a chubby chaser?” asked Goldie.
“No...you’re my mate,” said Brian. “And to me, you’re the most beautiful woman in the world. I’ll never understand why other men – well, why only two other men – in the world realize it, but I’m glad that there’s less competition...because I’d rather not have to fight a pack of bears to get to you, but I’d do it for you, Goldie. I’d do it for you.”
Brian looked away from the sky and looked down at the woman who was in his lap, safe, surrounded by his firm arms, right where she belonged. “Goldie...we don’t have to do anything tonight,” said Brian. “I don’t know why you said what you said, maybe it was a joke, maybe it was a mistake, and worst of all, maybe it was neither. But I wanted to show you something special
tonight...so if we don’t take this any further, I can walk away right now knowing that I did just that, that I showed you something no other man can show you.”
“Brian...what if I wanted to show you something tonight?” asked Goldie, finally looking back at Brian. “What if...what if I wanted to do something for the two of us?”
“What do you mean?” asked Brian, trying his best to keep his bear at bay as his mind raced through all the fantasies he’d had about Goldie, most that shared a moment exactly like this one.
“There’s been a part of me...a part of me that’s always wondered what it’s like to be a shifter,” said Goldie. “I know that being a shifter isn’t something you can control, something you can choose, but I’ve always wondered if maybe I can feel the same things you can feel.”
“You can...” started Brian, confused. “You can feel happiness, sadness, rage...I’ve seen it all before, the whole range, from the awe you feel when you see something amazing, like just now, to the irate way you get when you’re hungry and ready to go on the rampage.”
“You can feel something else, Brian,” said Goldie. “You...you can feel love, stronger than any human.”
“I don’t know if it’s stronger,” said Brian. “I’ll never know, because I’ve got nothing to compare my feelings to.”
“But I do,” said Goldie. “And...if I can feel something new with you, maybe I am your mate.”
“Did you feel something new?” asked Brian. “Something that’s telling you that I’m the one?”
“I don’t know what I’ve felt,” admitted Goldie. “Things have been so complicated, ever since all three of you admitted you had the same mate mark...but I want to find out if I’m your mate, Brian. And for that...well, I guess it’s good that we’re somewhere private.” That’s when Goldie did the bravest thing she did all night: she slipped off the kimono neck top, exposing a black bra with white lace.
